Last night on Fox “News” Channel’s The Ingraham Angle, host Laura Ingraham baselessly asserted that there was “no real scientific basis” for imposing social distancing measures designed to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. In fact, contrary to Ingraham’s claims, social distancing measures kept coronavirus fatalities from going up even higher.
Ed Mazza at HuffPost on former GOP Rep. Joe Walsh’s criticism of her flawed assertion:
Joe Walsh, a former Republican member of the House of Representatives and a one-time favorite of the far-right tea party movement, has a chilling warning for Fox News viewers amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
After sharing a clip of Fox News host Laura Ingraham dismissing efforts toward social distancing, Walsh warned that watching the network could get viewers killed:
LAURA INGRAHAM (HOST): Although intuitively I think it probably seemed like social distancing would be necessary, there was no real scientific basis for believing that, since it had never been studied.
And as one infectious disease doc told me last week, trying to stop this virus with social distancing is like trying to drive a nail through Jell-O. Viruses spread, that's what they do, they often weaken as they go and if it's like SARS, we hope it is, it'll eventually burn out as SARS did.
From the 05.04.2020 edition of FNC’s The Ingraham Angle:
About an hour or so later on MSNBC’s The 11th Hour With Brian Williams, Dr. Nahid Bhadelia debunked Ingraham’s medically dangerous advice against social distancing measures.
From the 05.04.2020 edition of MSNBC’s The 11th Hour With Brian Williams: